Small changes - focusing on one goal at a time

Greetings my friends! Todays take home message is that small changes can make a big difference!

I've been reading this book called "The Power of Less', and in it the author suggests that we will be more productive in the long-run if we focus on one small, attainable goal per month. I've set my intentions about where I want to be in life, but to change everything all at once would be overwhelming. I think that in order to succeed, I need to keep my eye on the prize. However, I think focusing on one small goal at a time will be more sustainable in the long run than a complete overhaul.

My main career goal in life is to be an exercise and nutrition expert. I want to be a coach, directing people how to lose weight, look great, feel fantastic, but most of all BE HEALTHY. Crash diets are not the answer. I've been there. And it didn't end well. I was on an obsessive diet for a long time that has to do with cellular cleansing. I thought I knew everything there is to know about nutrition and how the body worked. Well, now that I am older, I question many of my past beliefs. I question many of my former gurus. I feel that the information I learned in those years is still valuable to me, but I think it needs to be incorporated into a broader spectrum of nutrition.

This particular lifestyle involved green vegetable juice until dinner, proper food combinations (don't mix proteins and starches), and as much raw food as possible. No nuts, no beans, no sweeteners except stevia, only organic free range meat (which doesn't apply to me because I am a vegetarian), no cows milk (only raw goat cheese), and only wild fish were allowed. The diet was basically all vegetables, and the more raw food the better.

This lifestyle also involved getting regular colonics. I have no quarrels with colonics. In fact, I actually really like them. Its good to feel so clean and pure afterwards. My energy and mood usually improve and I have a fresh start for eating healthy foods again. The case was with this diet, that I was consuming so much juice and so many raw vegetables (and killing so much candida... but thats a topic for another day) that I actually ended up feeling like crap most of the time. The process of detoxification really blows if you do it too fast. I had headaches, low energy, obsessive thinking about food and what I would eat next, swollen lymph nodes, and at one point I even broke out in a nasty rash. The toxins are trying to exit the body in any way possible. Getting a colonic would instantly relieve my symptoms, but they would return after a few days. It was an endless cycle, and I believe it was caused by doing too much, too soon.

This time, I am going to take it slow and move along more gradually. I have a long way to go, I have really fallen off the wagon since my raw foodist vegetable juicing until dinner regime. I eat pizza, french fries, bagels, cheese, and desserts. I am obsessed with desserts. Don't get me wrong, I eat a TON of healthy food too. But especially since going back to school and focusing on that, bad eating habits have creeped their way back into my life. Whether it be convenience or comfort (or finances),  I indulge a little bit more than I would like. For instance, I get a free meal after working for 3 consecutive hours at the ThinkTank. The catch is it expires after a half an hour, and I have a class directly after I get off work in the basement lecture hall underneath the ThinkTank. I am usually really hungry at 1pm, and its hard to turn down free food. When I don't have time to get anything from the Food Court (which is most of the time), I am limited to the items that are for sale at the coffee shop. Being a vegetarian, my options are limited. We do have... bagels and cream cheese. The funny thing is I hadn't eaten a bagel in 5 years or so since before I started working there. Stress and hunger won out in the end. We have a vast array of convenience foods, none of which are particularly healthy (mmmm zucchini bread). So inevitably I ended up eating some junk food on occasion.  But I also eat a lot of salads, homemade curries, and veggie stir-frys, so its not all bad!

The point of that story is that I am in a completely overwhelming part of my life right now, and I won't be able to make a successful total-life overhaul in a short amount of time. It took me awhile to get where I am now and it will take a long time to get to where I want to be. I don't want to be detoxing so hard that its coming out of every pore in my body and making me feel like death. I want to make very small changes and do them consistently for a month before moving on.

This month I picked a goal that has nothing to do with my eating habits, but will help me motivated to live healthier throughout the day. My goal is to exercise for ten minutes every morning. It may sound small, but it sounds manageable. I might end up exercising for longer than that. But my goal will be just ten simple minutes in the morning, EVERY SINGLE DAY NO EXCEPTIONS.

I will focus on adding that to my morning routine first, and I will post on my blog whether I did it or not along with other successes I experience.

Ten minutes.. that is all. I can do this! Run for ten minutes, jump on the rebounder for ten minutes, do yoga for ten minutes.. just do it. Right away after I have my cup of coffee. Coffee... followed by exercise. Every single day!!

Starting small, setting intentions

This post brought to you by PUSHEEN IN SPACE! playing the keys, of course :-)

Yesterday didn't turn out exactly like I'd hope, I was pretty depressed about the break up still and it was hard to find motivation. Hot yoga was definitely out of the question. But two good things happened:


1. I did manage to drag myself to the gym. Getting there is half the battle! I didn't go running or do any kind of intense training, I just did some yoga and practiced inversions (handstands, headstands, and shoulder stands) using a wall. I am happy to announce that for my handstands in particular, the need for the wall has become less and less. I am comfortable doing (extremely short holds) handstands in the middle of the room now. There is still much work to be done, but I was pretty happy with this accomplishment. My headstands and shoulder stands need serious work though.

I also took this "before" picture so I can track my progress.

I did practice with my hoops a bit yesterday, even though I really didn't feel like it. It's hard to force yourself to do things when you feel really sad. I am proud of the short amount of practice that I did do though.

One negative thing, my left hamstring hurts today. I have no idea how long its going to take my hamstrings and adductors to heal. Its been so long but still they give me problems after yoga and stretching. I take extra care to be very cautious too, it really didn't feel like I was pushing myself at all. The stretching is what I would consider to be gentle. I guess I will just have to be even MORE gentle. I am also going to warm my muscles up with some cardio first next time.

2. I made my coffee at home today instead of going to buy a latte. Yeah, I know it seems stupid but I have a serious problem haha. Just to prove it, heres a selfie of me in all my morning glory drinking my hemp milk "latte" (yes, I do own a milk frother... because I have a weird obsession with steamed milk).

Moving on...

Today I decided to set some intentions for myself. I think its best to write them down (and now.. type them up!).

And speaking of time management, this graphic took me sooooo long to make. I can't help it, I like doing such things, and I had a lot of adorable clip art to use up. Ooops! At least it looks super pretty on my wall!

They are some lofty intentions but I know that I can do them! I have printed them and posted them on my wall as a daily reminder of the things I want in life! To end this post here is a halloween selfie. I was Minnie Mouse!! I'm not ashamed of my selfies anymore. As a wise woman once said "Love and honor your self...ies" haha

Welp, I'm off to make some veggie browns and avocado toast for my Sunday Brunch.... mmmmmm

Have a fantastic day!!

<3 Kat

Coming back from my hiatus!

Today's theme is... PUSHEEN! I just bought a pusheenicorn stuffy off amazon as a present to myself. I guess I'm on a pusheen kick.

There have been some changes in my life recently, mainly that my boyfriend and I finally split up. It was a long time coming and it needed to happen. I feel really sad and lonely, its hard to be alone without having someone there all the time.

 At least now I feel like I can take some time to focus on myself and get my life a little bit more organized. I want to get fit and lose weight, since I've been back in school I've gained 5 pounds or so. I haven't been working out and my eating habits have been less than stellar. Well, I am ready to start turning that all around. I really lost myself there for a couple years, and I want to become the best possible version of myself that is possible.

My college education isn't really conducive to a healthy lifestyle. From stress, to late night studying, to working two jobs, to teaching yoga, to volunteering with a kids after-school program, to making time to perform, my life is crazy hectic. But I know that I can still figure out a way to eat healthy and make room for exercise, even amidst all the chaos. My philosophy is to go gentle on myself. Take baby steps. Don't try to change everything all at once. I have a long ways to go as far as personal development, my problem is that I always try to fix everything at once. Ultimately this results in a big disaster, I get overwhelmed and I give up. I tend to stress eat and the pressure to get straight A's in school is extremely stressful. Going to college for a bachelor of science is pretty difficult. Between anatomy, chemistry, organic and biochem, and biology, the material is pretty strenuous. I need to get straight A's so that I can get a dietetic internship when I graduate.

My issue is that I really have terrible time management skills. I get distracted easily and often. My living spaces get cluttered and I don't plan ahead sometimes. I wait until the last minute to study and then cram for a few stressful days. I need to learn to spread out my studying into smaller blocks of time, so that I don't get distracted. Then when the test comes around, I won't be freaking out.

As far as working out and eating well goes, I need to just take it one step at a time. I made a list of my goals for where I would like to be at in three months. To get myself there, I am just going to take it slow. For instance, today I finally had a night to myself. I just got done with two exams this week and nothing is really due soon coming up so I wanted to take the night off from school. I cleaned my room. Like, I mean I really cleaned it. Compared to what it was like in here before, the place looks amazing. It feels really good to be in here. And I think having clean spaces is vital to keeping a clear, clutter-free head as well. This was an important first step in making some changes and I feel really good about it.

Although I didn't eat great tonight, I decided to be happy about the things that I did accomplish today and forgive myself for eating pizza. I really did enjoy the pizza. It was Annie's broccoli spinach pesto pizza and I put black olives on it and dipped it in marinara sauce. Throughout the night, I ate the whole thing haha. I don't care either. Life is too short without pizza. For time time being. Today, I felt the strong desire to have some and so I did. Perhaps in the future, I will decide to cut cheese out of my diet completely.

But honestly, I am focused on my fitness first and foremost. Which is why I will be attending hot yoga tomorrow and going to soak in the hot tub at the womens club too. I am going to do some hula hooping and yoga as well. I think if I do that much tomorrow, I will feel pretty good about it. Its not too much to ask, and once I make my exercise habits stick in my brain, I will switch over to focus on food. I just want to feel good and get through my day without feeling tired. But I want to eat good food. I want to spend less money on food. I am going to try and make more meals at home, including desserts! I have some cute aprons that need to be worn!

My first nutrition related goal is going to be to drink much more water. I need to be drinking more water, I feel like I am chronically dehydrated all the time. No bueno! I am going to make a conscious effort to drink a little less coffee and drink more water.

So to sum it up, my short-term goals for this week are:
1. get more exercise. do a little more yoga, more hula hooping, and maybe try running once this week
2. drink more water
3. drink less coffee
4. do my homework and reading throughout the week instead of all at once
5. Spend less money on food, cook more meals at home and make my own healthy desserts

I think that will be enough to start off. Wish me luck!!

<3 Kat